Where can we find the earliest version of that now popular attitude to draw on cartoon characters, the smirking-slyly-at-the-viewer 'tude? Should the Mona Lisa count, or is there another classic piece of art that nails it more closely? I guess Chuck Jones started it with Bugs Bunny, but it was good, in those instances, to me. Somehow there's a fine line between his version and the modern version that makes all the difference. But I wonder who inspired Chuck to invent that. Was it a James Dean poster or what?

Also, while I'm commenting -- I've been thinking, Hanna Barbera split up a classic comedy pairing when they created Fred Flintstone from Ralph Kramden, then, separately, Yogi Bear from Ed Norton. Is there some way we can reunite these personalities by teaming Fred with Yogi? Shouldn't those two have some magical comedic chemistry together?

If a juggler was just as incompetent and unwilling to learn the limitations and possibilities of his/her art, then yes.

Will there eventually funny and appropriate (that I can find) caricatures of this gangster and 'tude thing or is it a topic that not even a cartoonist can satire? I mean, you have people wearing pants so low they might as well be wearing underwear only. And they perform rituals where they spray paint all over walls and garbage cans and citizens react as if their possessions have been violated by body fluids. Bah! I have difficulty understanding how one depicts the culture as hip or clean and/or conservative.

Mr. Tat, that was a joke; about the messenger getting blamed for the message, and not the one who wrote it - the writer. It's a scenario that I've come across often. The worker gets blamed for something administration ( writer) does. I think its an analogous situation.

Well, I'd tend to agree. Has there ever been a good cartoon scriptwright who wasn't also an animator?

I know that in comics, most of the best writers in the old days were the same guys who illustrated the stories. But later there were exceptions to that rule. Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, etc. Of course those guys were rarely truly writing for little kids or the young at heart.

It is somewhat similar, Thomas. My train of thought was that the king was bright enough in that time frame to blame the correct people. I dug too narrowly into your comment and assumed you were thinking about the exception in which shooting the messanger is a good thing.

As a fan of rap, I have to ruefully acknowledge the nature of my good judgement, or complete lack of it when the matter of my adornments were in question because I had that 'Bugs and Taz as rappers Kriss Kross' shirt.

I had just turned 14 and was in the mall with my buddy Jesse when we saw it. It was the first Bugs Bunny T-shirt I'd ever seen and been able to purchase, so I bought it. It's my understanding that this was the beginning of Space Jam and the Nike ads with Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes.

So, I started that by buying the shirt, and I'm sorry.

But it gets worse.

Because although vicarious, I could have helped to amend my wrong-doings, but to no avail. I live in Sarasota FL ( but not much longer ) and a few years after the Shirt-Buying Incident of '90, Space Jam had come out and I 'ran into' Michael Jordan.

Let me back up. He had bought a place in Sarasota and was playing baseball at our local stadium. That's where the 'joke' in Space Jam about him trying to be taken seriously as a baseball player come from.

So right after Space Jam came out, me and my buddy Jesse again and his dad, who was driving, were coming back from the now legendary mall.

Michael Jordan and Jesse's dad had two things in common: they both could afford to live in a rich white neighborhood with security and golf courses, and, on this day at least, they were both heading in the other's direction.

MJ was crossing the road in a golf cart at high speed of what could've been 13 MPH and we came around the corner at what clocked in at just under a thousand miles per second. Unfortunately, we didn't hit him. Not that he noticed. He never took his foot off the accelerator or looked our way.

So, for what it's worth everybody, I'm sorry. But, in my defense, I was excited about the shirt and too young to drive.

We've gotten FAR away from the inexplicable street versions of the Looney Tunes. Those designs were used on t-shirts and merchendise in the early-to-mid 1990s. I guess they had a bout of good sense and dumped them.Now, you see new-age takes on the Bob Clampett designs (such as Bugs) on merch instead. That's more tasteful and less self-disrespecting, if it's ok for modern persons to use those designs for publicity. As a footnote, Warners even revamped their Warner Bros. Animation logo-getting rid of the tuxedo-bound Bugs in favor of a Bugs resembling his Tex Avery days. Madness.

Chris Garrison said..:"Also, while I'm commenting -- I've been thinking, Hanna Barbera split up a classic comedy pairing when they created Fred Flintstone from Ralph Kramden, then, separately, Yogi Bear from Ed Norton. Is there some way we can reunite these personalities by teaming Fred with Yogi? Shouldn't those two have some magical comedic chemistry together?"

What about BARNEY RUBBLE..? Even if Mel Blanc didn't intend to PORTRAY him as Art Carney..though he started sounding like that..thanks to a hostipaliztion while Daws Butler filled in, oding the Yogi thing, then Blanc recuperaitng and adjusting to that. Of course I won't come to the conclusin that the accidental, though near fatal, made him forget to sound original as he later stgill refused to imitate celebrity voices, or did he? [No slam at Mel, by the way.:-)]